Absorbent articles for personal hygiene, such as disposable diapers for infants, training pants for toddlers, adult incontinence undergarments, and/or sanitary napkins are designed to absorb and contain bodily exudates, in particular large quantities of urine, runny BM, and/or menses (together the “fluids”). These absorbent articles may comprise several layers providing different functions, for example, a topsheet, a backsheet, and an absorbent core disposed between the topsheet and the backsheet, among other layers, if desired.
The topsheet is generally liquid permeable and is configured to receive the fluids being excreted from the body and aid in directing the fluids toward an acquisition and/or distribution system and/or towards the absorbent core. In general, topsheets are made to be hydrophilic via a surfactant treatment applied thereto so that the fluids are attracted to the topsheet to then be channeled into the underlying acquisition and/or distribution system and/or the absorbent core. One of the important qualities of a topsheet is the ability to reduce ponding of the fluids on the topsheets before the fluids are able to be absorbed by the absorbent article. Stated another way, one design criteria of topsheets is to reduce the amount of time the fluids spend on the topsheets prior to being absorbed by the absorbent article. If the fluids remain on the surfaces of the topsheets for too long of a period of time, wearers may not feel dry and discomfort may increase.
To solve the problem of the wearer's skin feeling wet during, for example, a urination event, because of prolonged fluid residency on topsheets, apertured topsheets have been used to allow for faster fluid penetration into the absorbent article. Although apertured topsheets have generally reduced fluid pendency on topsheets, topsheets can still be further improved by providing three-dimensional substrates that further reduce skin/fluid contact and/or skin/fluid contact time during, for example, a urination event.